Do you have a good strategy?

The Baker’s Dilemma

The Tragedy of the Loaves

The Baker’s Dilemma is a multiplayer game that is played over multiple rounds. Here you can play any of the game’s six different levels (or models) where each one requires a different strategy to maximise your payoff.

Like most games in game theory, the model is given as a story – in this case, a baker trying to decide how many loaves to bake in order to make the most money (also known as the “payoff”).

In the game, you are a baker in a consortium of bakers who have together agreed that every day they will each produce a standard batch of 100 loaves in the expectation that they will sell for $1 each.

Each round of the game represents a day’s production. All the loaves produced by the bakers will be sold and all at the same price – though it will not necessarily be $1.

Not all of the bakers are content to cooperate in producing only this standard batch of loaves and that is where the problems – and the dilemmas – start.